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About Us

I first tasted Tempeh way back in the early 1990s when I was Vegetarian. I remember it well. A mate of ours who was Vegan had marinated it in the holy trinity of Tamari, ginger and garlic and it was gently sautéed in sesame oil. It tasted great and the texture was really good. I didn’t know anything about the natural origins of Tempeh in Indonesia or it’s incredible nutritious qualities, but I remember thinking to myself, ‘with food like this, I can do this, let’s go Vegan!’

Fast forward many years later, and we started to question the freshness and quality of the commercially available Tempeh we were buying from our independent whole food shop. The bitterness and ammonia like taste was really getting to us, and we had to resort to steaming the Tempeh before we smothered it in strong tasting marinades to mask it’s bitterness.

So, just over 6 years ago, in the spirit of DIY culture, we started making our own fresh Tempeh. We shared it with friends and family, and we’ve never looked back.

Fresh Organic Tempeh is amazing. It doesn’t have the bitterness or the ammonia type flavour that commercial Tempeh has. Like other foods that have been pasteurised, frozen, flown around the world, the taste and quality are inevitably compromised. We felt there was a need to make the best, freshest Tempeh locally where we live in Birmingham.

We make fresh Organic Tempeh very differently from the commercial model of mass production developed in the 1960s. We make our Tempeh in small batches in stainless steel trays rather than perforated plastic bags. So we can create the optimum conditions to culture perfect Tempeh. We’ve gone to great lengths to ethically source the best Organic Soybeans from real Fair Trade partnerships and the very best Tempeh culture.

Since January 2017 we have formed a Vegan Worker Co-operative called Beet the System. As Workers we own and democratically organise our workplace whilst striving to make the highest quality Vegan food.

We are pleased to announce that we can now cater our mouth watering Vegan dishes from across the globe with our freshly made Organic Tempeh. We can also provide other exciting, innovative Vegan dishes including cakes at local events. In June we very successfully provided catering at the Supersonic Festival 2017 weekend.